Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — As the Dodgers return to Southern California, the opening of the season has been tarnished with the bombshell revelation first reported by ESPN: that of some sort of connection between slugger Shohei Ohtani and an illegal gambling operation out of Orange County.
Further complicating the story is that there have been two diametrically opposed stories that came out in rapid succession. First, the story was that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara got in over his head with gambling losses and Shohei begrudgingly bailed his friend out, paying off his losses under the condition that he would never gamble again. That story paints Ohtani as a likeable guy, helping out a sad sack friend who found himself in a bind because of an addiction. There might have been a repercussion or two because of Shohei knowingly paying off a gambling debt, but I don’t think it would amount to much.
Unfortunately, that is not the story that Ohtani’s camp is going with at the moment. Almost the second that story got into the atmosphere in Seoul, it was immediately recanted. The story goes that Shohei listened to the story that Mizuhara was telling the Dodger clubhouse and started to piece things together. Mizuhara’s story didn’t add up to Ohtani, this version of the story goes, and Shohei smelled a rat and started asking questions in the wake of the team meeting, at which point the missing money was discovered. This story paints Ohtani as an unwitting victim of a false friend, and if it is true, Ohtani wouldn’t be subject to any sanction from the league any more than he would be if someone had stolen his car or Rolex.
However, this second version of the story requires us to make a lot of assumptions. It requires us to believe that Mizuhara had access to Shohei’s finances and knew account passwords. Which, I suppose could happen as Mizuhara was pretty much Ohtani’s link to the outside world during his time in the United States. I could see Shohei giving him access so that Mizuhara could pay Ohtani’s bills, go on shopping errands for him, etc. Then, it requires a second belief that Mizuhara was somehow able to disguise the withdrawals and not draw the attention of Shohei until a couple of days ago. As anyone who has a joint checking account knows, this is pretty hard to do, unless Ohtani was one of those guys who thinks “I have enough money to cover every expense I will ever encounter, so why do I need to balance my checkbook?” However, the rapidity with which the story changed does argue for this version of events. Ohtani’s team must have known how bad it would look to change the story, but they did it anyway. You don’t do that unless you’re correcting false information.
However, this really strains credulity. Why would Mizuhara lie to a major sports publication like ESPN in the first interview? Did he think that he could slip this by Ohtani without his noticing? I hardly think so. This second version of events seems more likely to be a lawyer-directed load of BS designed to shield Ohtani from any charges of wrongdoing. I could see the lawyers at Team Ohtani going to Mizuhara and saying, “Look, we need you to recant the story, and this new story is going to make you look really bad, but we’ll ‘take care of you’ once the whole thing blows over. After all, it’s probably only Ohtani and Mizuhara who know the true version of events. If they stick to this story, maybe they can ride it out.
But even that requires Mizuhara to absolutely fall on a sword for Ohtani. Obviously, stealing 4.5 million dollars is considerably more serious that placing a few bets with an illegal bookmaker. Especially if the bets were paid off in the end. It’s hard to believe that Mizuhara would agree to that, even if it was to help a friend.
There is of course, a third, disastrous option: that Mizuhara was acting as a go-between and placing these bets on Ohtani’s behalf. Nobody wants to believe that is true (except the Internet, who already has him throwing games and any number of other crimes). This worst case scenario seems the least likely, as according to most sources, Ohtani lives and breathes baseball, and wouldn’t have known enough about the point spread in an NFL game to make an intelligent bet.
Nevertheless, as we head into Opening Week of the season, a pall has been cast over what should be a fun season at the Ravine. We’ll see how it all gets resolved, but none of it is good for the Dodgers, none of it is good for Ohtani.
